The more I delve into the study of south, east, and southeast Asian archaeology the more I realize that many of the dominant theories of state formation and political control were not only severely incomplete or flat out incorrect, but incomplete or incorrect in a particular direction. For example, the idea of the "hydraulic empire", in which states were formed due to elite control of water resources for irrigation and other purposes which allowed them to control the countryside, is still very popular in a lot of broad comparative studies and global surveys. But when I delve into the scholarship of the regions themselves it seems like these ideas are either extrapolations from data purely from absolute centers (such as Angkor Wat) that quickly break down in the countryside, or are hopelessly muddled in the first place (for example Egypt, the paradigmatic "hydraulic empire" didn't exercise central control over irrigation until the Middle and possibly Late Kingdom).

So it sort of occurs to me that the image painted by these theories is invariably one in which the a small circle of god-kings and their divinely sanctioned aristocracy exercise complete control over a population utterly cowed by superstitious awe--the implied epilogue being the arrival of the Europeans, who institute rational and popular government.

So long introduction, but how well does that match other narratives of colonial justification? We have all heard that Europeans justified their control through the idea of spreading civilization, but how important were ideas of popular liberation to this?